


It Is What It Is

by SamFuckingWinchester



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, First Time, Fluff, Kinda, M/M, Season/Series 07, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-10-08 10:54:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10385052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamFuckingWinchester/pseuds/SamFuckingWinchester
Summary: "[Daryl] doesn’t know it, but the moment the door shuts Paul’s chest swells and aches like he’s been punched, and the feeling never really goes away. It just gnaws on the bones of his ribs like a wild, starving animal, eating away at his sanity. He doesn’t know, because Paul would never tell him. They’re not at the stage where they share feelings with each other."One-shot set in Season 7.





	

Paul was a man of action, but he understood the value of patience. He could wait, and watch, and calculate. But no aspect of the apocalypse could have ever prepared him for the slow burn that was Daryl Dixon. 

Paul didn’t want to rush; whatever hang-ups Daryl had with intimacy or closeness wouldn’t be solved by diving right in (although Paul was definitely up for going that route). So they start slow: the brushing of hands, whispers of affection, urgent fingers knotting in messy hair for a second, just a moment, the only time the two men had to be alone. And now they’re sharing a bed, but only for a few hours, and they’re not really touching. If Paul didn’t think this was worth it he would have given up a long time ago. He still considers it, fleetingly, as he’s waking up and the clock suggests three AM, watching Daryl roll off the mattress and sneak off to wherever he’s been sleeping without Paul. He doesn’t know it, but the moment the door shuts Paul’s chest swells and aches like he’s been punched, and the feeling never really goes away. It just gnaws on the bones of his ribs like a wild, starving animal, eating away at his sanity. He doesn’t know, because Paul would never tell him. They’re not at the stage where they share feelings with each other. Paul doesn’t know if they’ll ever get to that stage. 

But it’s not as if Daryl hasn’t been trying. There are moments in the dead of night where Paul will turn and wrap an arm around Daryl, and he finds himself holding his breath when the other man doesn’t immediately turn away. Sometimes it lasts a only a second, but other times it’s longer. Those precious minutes are what keeps him going. When they share a watch duty and the two men talk, Daryl almost seems shocked that Paul is listening at all. He is, though. He hangs on every word Daryl says. 

Maggie is watching them too. Paul can tell because he’s always catching a glimpse of her out of the corner of his eye. And when they do pass by, she winks at him, which makes him blush. _Slow. Things have to go slow._ If Paul could give Daryl the “We Don’t Know How Much Time We Have Left” speech, if he thought it would make any difference at all, he would. But Paul knows broken people, knows how they operate, and he won’t risk losing Daryl. Sometimes, Paul even contents himself with just watching Daryl practice his knife-throwing skills, or his teasing with Maggie. 

There are times when his “put together” façade cracks and he breaks down, begging Daryl not to go on whatever stupid, pointless mission he has planned with Sasha, even though he knows good and well that it’s not pointless, because the Hilltop needs the supplies. Usually it doesn’t make a difference. Daryl just makes a face like he’s being kicked in the stomach and leaves before Paul can really lose it. One time, though, he stayed. He disappeared out the door and Paul crawled back into bed, trying to reason with himself that he wasn’t crazy, when the door opened again. He felt the mattress sink in beside him and heard the softest “I’m sorry”, and Paul forgave him, just like he always would. 

Paul is not an idiot. He knows it has to be this way. He’s felt the scars that litter his partner’s back, seen the memories of the dead pass over his eyes as they glaze over, watched the restless way he tries to sink into sleep but can never quite get there. Even before the world went to shit, trauma was hard to deal with, and Paul would know. The world may have changed, but the people in it are still broken, still changed by what’s happened before; Daryl is no different. 

Missing him starts like a rock in his shoe: uncomfortable, but manageable, until you step the wrong way and you feel it all over again. It gets worse as time goes on, feeling less like a nagging pain and more like a residual ache that makes its home in his chest, something he becomes painfully aware of every time Paul Rovia breathes. There’s so much that needs to be done but he’s too worried about his crossbow-wielding mess of a…what? Boyfriend? Partner? One night stand? He doesn’t even know anymore. He doesn’t sleep, doesn’t eat, just runs errands for Maggie until she insists that he slow down and talk to her, and when he won’t she offers him an expression that looks a little bit too close to pity. He’s running on fumes until Daryl walks through the Hilltop gates again.

Whatever happened between the time Daryl’s been gone and now flipped some kind of switch in both men, because Daryl’s in Paul’s trailer kissing him and Paul is kissing back. Shirts are being discarded, shoes slipped off. Paul knows he should say something. _Slow down. Talk to me. It’s not supposed to go like this._ Except maybe it is. Maybe Daryl has finally figured out that they don’t have unlimited time, or that he’s killing Paul with every subtle rejection. He lets Paul’s warm hands rove over touch-starved skin, following the trails scar tissue makes and over long-faded tattoos. His hands get tangled in Paul’s hair and his teeth make marks on the skin stretched over delicate collarbones, and everything is just too quiet aside from their heavy breathing and the words left unsaid. The silence is too stifling for Paul. 

“Are you sure?” he whispers. He ties up his hair out of his face, mostly for something to do with his hands. 

“Yeah.” Even though he was expecting it, the answer still shocks Paul a little. “Promise,” Daryl continues when Paul doesn’t say anything. That’s good enough. 

It’s slow. It’s measured, and quiet. It’s careful. And yeah, it hurts in all the right places, just a little bit. It’s glorious. The sun comes up, light creeping in through the tightly drawn blinds of the trailer, and Daryl is still there holding him. Paul decides that whatever comes next, he may not mind taking his time after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow my conclusions suck. :) Thanks for reading anyway. Can't get enough of this pairing right now.


End file.
